Workshop on Dependability in Heathcare Informatics

This workshop, organised by DIRC, was held in Edinburgh, 22 - 23 March, 2001.

The conference proceedings are available (MSWord 1.4Mb)

Focus of the workshop

Society’s dependence on computer-based systems continues to increase, while the systems themselves -embracing humans, computers and engineered systems — become ever more complex. These trends coincide with pressure for systems to be brought to market faster and at lower (and more predictable) cost. Achieving sufficient dependability in these systems, and demonstrating this achievement in a rigorous and convincing manner, is of crucial importance to the fabric of the modern Information Society.

Much scientific progress has been made in achieving high dependability in computer hardware and software but wider systems involving computers, people and organisations are often unsuccessful and the cause of financial losses, or worse. It is evident that satisfactory resolution of such problems demands major breakthroughs in understanding the fundamental problems that arise in attempts to build systems involving complex interactions amongst numbers of computers and human beings. Our interest is therefore in developing improved means of specifying, designing, assessing, deploying and maintaining complex computer-based systems in contexts where high dependability is crucial.

The focus of this workshop was dependability in health care systems. The enormous growth in the use of communications and information technology in all aspects of healthcare provision from the use of computers to store and access patient records through to computer-assisted medical procedures present healthcare professionals (and their clients) with a wide range of opportunities and challenges in the delivery of healthcare. As Information and Communication Technologies increasingly play major roles in the provision of healthcare throughout the world — it is clear that there is a growing need for research into the dependability of medical informatics and health care information management.

Topics

• Healthcare Informatics and the Design Process
• Electronic Patient Records Security and Confidentiality
• Healthcare Information Infrastructure
• Change Management and Healthcare Informatics
• Effectiveness of ICTs in healthcare organizations
• Teamwork, Expert Systems and Decision Support
• Knowledge Management and Process Change
• Telemedicine and Telecare

Organising Committee

Stuart Anderson, Edinburgh University
John Hughes, Lancaster University
Rob Procter, Edinburgh University
Mark Rouncefield, Lancaster University
Ian Sommerville, Lancaster University
Robin Williams, Edinburgh University

Programme

The workshop programme is available.